What do you do when the cupboard is bare?

Interview!

Honestly, I said reduce the scheme. If we're going to be lousy, let's be master some bare basics and be less-lousy at those.

I have been in this situation 4 times during my short career (8 years so far). Will all of this help you win a state title with lesser talent? Probaly not but these are some things we have done to "make the journey easier".

X & O's
-Have a systematic offense in place (i.e. Wing-T)
**we usually run LESS plays but just as much or more formations
**along these lines, RUN THE FOOTBALL ! teach your QB to watch for the backjudge's hand to go up at 5 seconds left on the playclock to run as much time as possible
-Keep it simple on defense (focus on being great at tackling and practice creating turnovers every day)
**We have 1 zone coverage (Cover 3) and man coverage. Thats it and we play in the highest level of HS football in Ohio. The less your kids think the better. Especially with lack of talent
- Be aggressive on special teams (alot of squib kicks, suprise onsides etc. play like nothing to lose)

outside of X & O's:
- Your Strength & Conditioning program becomes that much more important. Make sure you have a system in place that has clear goals, objectives, and ways of measuring progress
- Schedule as many cupcakes as you can. forget about your pride, your player's confidence is -more important
-Along that notes, if you are allowed to have pre-season scrimmages or 7-on-7's with other schools, schedule them with bad football teams. Sometimes confidence is everything especially in a program with a history of losing.
- create or have a highlight film made of the previous season (no matter how short it may be to show at your banquet and at the jr. high banquet
- do the right thing and set the right examples. It may take time but eventually your philosopies will become a trademark of the program
-Do whatever you can to field a Freshmen and/or JV team.
- continue to focus on getting kids out for football in your building (high school age) and within your district (in the middle and elementary schools)
***we had a free elementary youth football camp every Thursday night during the season for an hour . Get them excited to play football
***Speak to your Jr. High team's before a game, at their banquet. Send each kid a birthday card from the program.
- Set an example of mental toughness for your staff. They will follow your lead if they are worth having on your staff.

MISC.:
- Develop a staff that understands that developing successful young men off the field is more important than wins and losses
- Continue to work on building relationships with your current & future student-athletes, fellow coaches, administrators, parents, community members, etc.
- Never stop learning. The best never rest.
- Never stop evaluating what you do.
- Visit with other coaches who have had success rebuilding programs, your not the 1st guy to fix a broken program
- do the right thing

guys I hope this helps. I have been there and sometimes it is a matter of survival. I have pages worth of notes from my experiences and others if I can be anymore help.

I said decrease because if they have trouble executing the base plays, what will happen with the complimentary plays?

Duece, it is an interesting question, because if you ask the polar opposite question :
"What do you do when you are loaded"
I bet most would say you decrease your scheme and just let the players outplay the opposition.

So either way, it seems the MOST effective tactic is to do as LITTLE as you need to in order to do it as well as you can.

I agree. The last thing I want my players doing is thinking about their jobs. Get good at a few things, throw in a counter or three and try to control the ball and dictate the tempo of the game.

Multiple times I have had my offense hold the ball for entire periods, we lost those games but had chances to win when we had no business being there. Pick up first downs and tackle well, if you can do those two things, I believe you can hang in most games. Obviously sometimes you will just get destroyed by the top tier teams you face, but they would have been tough to beat anyway.

I'm paraphrasing here but Bo said underdogs should do more, take more chances, while the more talented team should be more conservative.

Which I thought counter-intuitive.

We pulled back to two base series (Buck and Belly) and ran them out of a ton of formations, personnel groupings and backfield actions. We looked like a hodge podge of Wing-T, Single-Wing, and run heavy gun.

Counter-intuitive because a team with more talent, more skills, more physical ability should therefore be able to do more and at a high level.

By definition a team with less talent can't do as much or as well so by trying to do more only exacerbates their limitations, i.e. they're attempting to do more things they can't execute.

Perhaps but by not using all their "weapons" they limit themselves, in effect helping the lesser talented team - doing their job for them.

Isn't that the definition of "playing to not lose," which can be disastrous?

Actually, if you have overwhelmingly superior personnel playing not to lose is exactly what you're doing.

I'm interested to hear what the turbo-no-huddle guys would do in the scenario.

3 and out is the kiss of death with that style, so would you stick with the up tempo scheme and count on it to get you plays you might not otherwise? Or, as others have mentioned, is it time to put it on the shelf for a clock-chewing offensive scheme?

That's what practice is for. I'm not saying that you don't have a comprehensive game plan but that doesn't mean that you have to use everything.

In 2008 we had a great defense. Every starter got a scholarship. By nature I'm an aggressive DC who loves to bring heat but not that year. I called "Base, Cover 2" a LOT. It was kind of boring but the idea was to win and we knew that the best chance for the other guys would be to hit a couple of big plays. That risk was minimized by playing Base. That doesn't mean that we didn't include pressure in our game plans or practice them but we didn't use them in games unless we needed them.

Read Mike Leach's book "Swing Your Sword". I feel you have to master your scheme but also think outside the box and be unpredictable. At the same time that will make it fun and exciting for the kids. You have to create a different brand of football within the program.